Alud lang Syme....or however you spell it.

Well happy New Year everybody from the crazy kid training for an Ironman in the midst of a New England winter. I could end this year with a post that's classy, inspirational, and heartwarming but if you're not a regular reader you know that's not my style...ok maybe it is my style make that New Years' resolution #1 develop unique writing style. well since this is my last blog in the 2 to the 007 I guess I have to end with a couple of top ten lists

Top 10 things that made me cry or close to crying in 2007

10. the scene in Rocky 3 when mickey died.

9. Finishing my first marathon ( I didn't cry but I was damn close.)

8. The continuing rising death toll in the Iraq war.

7. The Cleveland Indians losing the ALCS to the Boston Red Sox

6. The New york Yankees losing the divisional series to the Indians ( in anger)

5. The Red Sox Winning the World Series. ( In anger)

4. The Hoyts on Real Sports with Byrant Gumble

3. Finishing my First Half Iron.

2. Macca Winning Kona.

1. First watching the Blazeman video on You Tube.

Top 10 greatest moments in 2007

10. Finding out how to work this whole blogspot thing from Angry Runner.

9. Finishing on the podium at Waramaug

8. Getting in a 40 mile ride with Claire in freezing temps.

7. Getting in the infamous "mother of All Bricks" With Angry.

6. Signing up for IM New Zealand

5. Winning my age group at the Litchfield Hills Tri

4. Finishing on the podium for my First Half Iron (tie) Joining HEAT

3. Getting the day off from work, finishing in the top 10 overall, and Meeting Claire at the Nutmeg State Sprint.

2. Finishing the Marathon in Nashville

1. Winning my Age group at the Nutmeg State Half Iron.

Top 10 Worst Racing moments of 2007

10. When the clouds opened up with 1 mile left in the griskus sprint

9. Getting passed by Georgetown Mike at the Nutmeg State Sprint and dropping to second in my age groupr.

8. The bike leg of the Nutmeg State Half...nuff said.

7. Nearly taking out the guy behind my as I went through an aid station at the Patriot Half.

6. Finding out the hard way that there were only two portolets on the Patriot Half Run and they were 2 miles apart.

5. Getting passed for third place in my age group within the last half mile of the Pat Griskus Sprint tri.

4. The swim at Niantic Bay......you know its bad when my bike split is better than my swim split.

3.Mile 15 of the Country Music Marathon when I had to wait for 5 minutes to get into a portolet.

2. The run leg of the Park City Mossman and the aftermath...GI distress is never pretty.

1. Mile 23 of the Country Music Marathon...it added a whole new definition to the word pain.

Those were just a tiny fragment of the memories from 2007...2008 looks to have just as many if not more moments like these. Happy New Year!

Riding into the future

R.D.

What do I have to do to get 100 miles in.

Yesterday's long ride was productive but I'm not sure if it was productive enough. I got in 8 loops of the lake (65 miles), before having to "use the facilities" numb feet, imending darkness, and a rip roaring headache forced me to stop. I got in a good 4 hours in the saddle..so if I can maintain a 16-17 mph pace i'm looking at a 6:30 bike split. On my 5th loop I managed to meet up with Greg, a local cyclists/cycling coach logging 50 miles on his cross bike. Shot the shit told him I was doing an Ironman..asked who I was working with...Told him I was self coached at the moment but I'll probably work with John Hirsch once I have the dinero and get a little more serious...when I don't have this whole school thing going on. Definately talked up John and told me to invest in a power tap when I have the greenbacks. I found out that having a single large back pocket is not as good as having the standard three. Now with the three pockets you can seperate one pocket for powerbars, one pocket for gels, one pocket for EPO syringes, last will and testament, 9mm if riding through the North End of Hartford. Also winter gloves make picking up gel packs near impossible. Also cold weather tends to freeze already rock hard powerbars but irregardless I managed to get adaquate fuel, although this cold weather riding screws with hydration, you need it but you don't feel like you need to drink...it's just a mess. I figure when I get to NZ I'll plan on going through at least 1 gatorade every hour and a bottle of water every 10 miles....pretty much I'll set a base hydration plan and adjust according to the weather. Fuel wise I plan on going through at least 4 gels and 2 powerbars on the bike, which seems about average figure a gel at the 13 and 25 mile mark a bar at the 45 mile and 60 mile mark then gels at the 75 and 90 mile marks. Once again these are base estimates and will be adjusted with hunger and the amount of fluid taken in. I want to be well fueled but I don't want a 15-20 min. T2 time from "quality reading time". Anyhow the loops were uneventful. I spent a good deal of time in the aerobars, but only managed to average 16 mph, which is what I'll probably average in Taupo maybe I might be a little faster due to some "net"downhills but all in all I plan for a comfortable ride and a Macca-esque suffer fest on the run. This weekend looks to be clear and above freezing so I'll probably be back at the lake looking for more punishment....I hope to get all these long rides out of my system before Classes resume late this month. Afterall I won't beable to justfy spending 6 hours on a bike when I've got a 20 page paper on Yasir Arfat's hemroids looming over me. So that's how I spent my weekend on tap for today is a quick trip to the waterbury Y for 3000 yards in the pool before they close for the holiday, maybe a run it's still above freezing otherwise I'll ring in the New year with a trainer ride and year in review blog post before champange and finger foods.

The Lord of the Lake
R.D.

Even the grandest cathedral was built from one small brick.

Ok my workout today was not that impressive a 15 mile bike with a 7.5 mile (1:09) run. The run was at slower than normal pace I ended up picking up a high school aged jogger and shot the shit to make the middle 2 miles go by faster. Also the fact that I was running in the dark with only my little red flasher made things interesting...the only light I had on my way back to where I parked were the highbeams of oncoming traffic. Nashville is back in Tennessee and the reason my brick was cut shorter than planned was because I was shooting the shit with him before he caught his flight...but 15 miles in under and hour isn't that bad ...is it? Tomorrow I have a long ride on tap...I must do at least 12 loops of Lake Waramaug...I need to know if my abused body can handle a century ride. The fact another Nor'Easter could be making land fall ( although I doubt it) means I will probably shoot for an early morning excursion to the lake...hopefully there will be no ice. so yes its do or die time. If I can get in at least 1 100+ mile ride then I know I can tackle the Iron bike with confidence...instead of Massive Cajones and foolish pride. So that's the plan for tomorrow.

The Road Warrior
R.D.

From cocky kid to Ironman

After shifting through some old photos , kicking around thoughts, destressing from the holidays and masses of credit card debt. My pops and I got to talking on how I came a long way from being the kid doing these things on a mountain bike. My first race was the Pat Griskus Sprint Tri in July 2002, I thought to myself, I'm a good swimmer and a descent runner this thing should be a cake walk. For the most part those two legs were. The bike however was a different story. As a kid I had grown up living on wheels, I had tore a dirt track into my back yard I rode my bike so much. When we moved out to Wolcott I was in heaven our house was situated on a fairly flat 1 mile loop. Every day I was riding at least 2 or 3 loops which ain't bad for a 12 year old kid. Then the accident occured. About 2 weeks after moving in I was out on one of my rides and had a case of "Tour de France Fever" I was descending down this little speed bump of a hill my head tucked down and helmetless pedaling in the biggest ring my mountain bike had. I forgot that one of my neighbors was having their siding re-done and didn't see the contractor's truck until it was too late to even mutter "oh shit."BAM I remember seeing my baseball cap flying into the tailgate and my knees hitting sheet metal then after a moment I felt steel against my neck and pain in my legs. My inital thought and screams were "Oh my God! Oh My God! I'm gonna die!" The next thoughts as the contractors extricated me and my mangled bike from the truck were oh shit I broke my legs, the fact that I was slightly concussed did not help the fact. After getting checked out by my neighbors and hearing the sympathetic of my mother " Do you know how much damage you inflicted on that guy's truck!" as she threw a bag of frozen turnips on my legs. Indeed all I heard about was how I did nearly $600 dollars worth of damage to the truck and totaled my $200 mountain bike all the way to the ER. After a quick check up I was told my legs were not broken...as emphazied by the fact I limped away and I had a minor concussion. 2 things happended that day. I never rode without a helmet ( up until last year) and I didn't touch a bike for almost 2 years. In 2002 after 2 years of High school swimming and long distance running I decided to tackle this triathlon thing. I blew the dust of the $100 red mountain bike my Aunt had bought for me as a replacement 2 years earlier and began to crank out 2 ,3, 6, 8 mile rides to try to prepare for this bike leg. The fact that the first three miles were all down hill didn't help. I showed up at Quassapaug on the second Wed. in July ready for action. The swim was the first time I had done open water a quick off course excursion into one of the support kayaks made me realize this was not going to be as easy as my pool swims, and that against all my training I would have to lift my head to figure out where the hell I was going. After 14 min. I was out of the water and onto the bike. Like I said the first 3 miles were all down hill I kicked it into the highest gear and kept my hands by the brakes as riders on their sleek $3000 fine tuned aero machines soared past me like I was standing still. The climbs were brutal as I inched up hills guys on tri and road bikes were cooking up. Any advantage I had in the swim was completely erased. I crawled into T2 to begin the run. On the run I noticed I wasn't as slow as half the guys I rode in with. I was passing droves on my way to the turn around and even more on my way back. As I finished I thought to myself " Hey I might have a knack for this." the following year I fixed up two ten speeds and did the same race. I finished a little bit higher at the Griskus and was second in my age group granted the little yellow ten speed was still a little small for my frame. About a month later on a whim as a High School graduation present to my self I did the 1st Sandy Beach Tri..I was the only psycho kid under 20 doing the thing solo...and I did it on a better fitting bike. I won my age group and set a course record ( after all it was the first race.) A two year Hiatus, drinking binge, attempt to become a college swimmer followed followed by another year off working at the Gas station/Video game shop/Bank trying to get back into school followed. In 2006 after taking up masters I decided to get back into tris. I spent my income tax refund on a road bike ( Enrico) and entered the Griskus Sprint, Griskus Olympic, Niantic Bay Sprint, and Park City Mossman. I did pretty descent. I finished second in my age group at Niantic...would have medaled in my age group if I hadn't crashed in the Griskus Sprint and survived the two olympic distance races. The following year I resolved to do a half Ironman....and I did in fact I did two, along with some more sprints and Olympics added for flavor. So now on the dawn of 2008 I'm training for an Ironman "the top tier" of endurance multisport... more in debt to equipment purchases then I ever thought possible but with medals and t-shirts that were worth it all. I guess I've come a long way from the kid who showed up on the beach with a speedo and a mountain bike.

Gag Photo of the Year?

That's right my next post is my Year end photo issue. It's time to see what the best moment captured by thoses geniuses at bright room was and the nominees are

A. Claire and Hannibal Lector: a picture of our favortie sans wetsuit triathlete next to someone resembling the good doctor. "Pass the fava beans."

B. The Angry Runner doing what angry runners do Country Music Marathon style

C. Me with the most attractive face ever getting out of the water on the Swim of the Lake Waramaug triathlon.

D. A momento of Evil Freshman year of College Rob.

or lastly

E. A picture from the infamous Emmy Rosum post.

Vote wisely.

8 on the 28th

Ok so it's not as impressive as Claire's stats but for my first real run in almost a week I'll take it. This morning I woke up at 6:30am and decided to crank out an 8 miler on the black ice coated streets of Wolcott, as my way of giving mother nature the finger. It started out pretty well as the first mile of my runs are on my overly sanded street, and the main roads, (Lyman and route 69) at about the two mile mark I noticed a little more heel slippage than usual and decided to run on the hard packed frozen road sand on the shoulder, afterall even frozen sand has more traction than ice. As I rounded Scovil's dam my nostrils filled with the lovely aroma of fresh road kill and the diesel exhaust fumes of the town sanding trucks getting the roads ready for the morning commute. This pungent mixture would stay in my nose until I reached the center of Boundline Road when I was about half way up a nice little 8% grade burner. If there is one really good thing about my normal 8 mile running route it is there are a lot of hills on the back half. I made it up Boundline and ran past the town cemetery and high school ( the one reason I won't do this loop at night...and no it is not because I think some High school punks will cover me in spray paint.). I ground my way up Beach Rd. and then down Longmeadow back home. I finished in 1:13 not bad considering it was 30 degrees out and I was dodging icy spots, and I haven't run in almost 5 days. Tonight Karas will kick my ass with another diabloical set of swimming torture and tommorrow I will punish my legs for holiday goodies with a long Brick at Lake Waramaug I'm thinking a 56 mile bike with a 16 mile run is in order maybe more on the bike if the weather is nice. Sunday looks to be a good day for a nice long ride but once again weather, road conditions, and temperature will be the factors in any decision to ride outdoors. Well that's it for now.
The Titan of the Tundra
R.D.

Trying to get out of this negative funk....

that's right for the last month things have been going to hell in a handbag. I have been stressed between school, work, financial , and family issues. The fact that this lovely little 6 month period known as the New England Winter has made it difficult for me to train for my Ironman which is now less than 3 months away has not helpped any, or the "advice" from some people to stick to short course. Needless to say I have been mentally and physically exhausted. For those of you who read my earlier post my grandmother is in the Hospital due to stroke related issues...some chemical is imbalanced in her brain/central nervous system making it hard for her to keep her balance. This all coming as she nearly collasped at Christmas dinner...She was hopitalized for this earlier in the month but as I said our wonderful healthcare system is more focused on emptying beds ASAP so the HMOs, drug companies, and Hospitals make maximum profit for minimal care...and discharged her in her current state of imbalance....I could go on a rant here about how we need either socialized or subsidized medicine but that's for a later time. This morning I snoozed through my planned 8 mile run and first 10 min. of my shift....not good...so tonight I'm hitting the pool to try to unleash some of this mental baggage as well as the nearly 10 pounds of food and candy I have consumed over the last 3 days. I did run 4 miles on Christmas eve but in the grand scheme of things it amounts to Jack Schitt . So that was my rant for the evening...Stef has a diabolical set of torture awaiting me and I must oblige...winning the swim leg isn't going to happen via osmosis..well like I said that's it for now...a year in review is coming up and I promise it will make for some lighter and more ..."normal " material.

Swimming to Save his Soul
R.D.